The National Cost of Growing Old .... Is Perhaps Not That Large

An article from Today:

Greying population could 'cost Govt S$13b more by 2025'

by Teo Xuanwei 

SINGAPORE - By 2025, public services for what will be a greyer Singapore could cost the Government S$79 billion, or S$13 billion more than what it spends today, according to a new report released by global management consultancy Accenture. 

Even as the Government has highlighted the effects of the dramatic demographic shift in the coming years, including higher social spending, this is the first time an estimate of the cost has been worked out. 

According to Accenture's report, which covers 10 countries, the increased spending in public services - defence and public safety, education, housing and healthcare - will come up to the same percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 as it stood last year at 12 per cent. 

The less-informed reader might feel scared. "Oh my goodness," he will say, "How can Singapore afford all these costs?"

There are many possible ways. For example, as senior citizens form an increasing proportion of the population, younger people form a decreasing proportion. In other words, there will be fewer young people for the government to look after. Increased expenditure on the old can be offset by decreased expenditure on the young. For example, if Singapore has fewer young people, government expenditure on education must logically decrease.

Also, fiscal spending isn't necessarily a bad thing (although the PAP will never be heard to tell you that). Government spending on areas such as geriatric healthcare must surely create jobs and stimulate economic growth to some extent. For example, there will be more jobs for nurses, doctors and other people who run and manage hospitals and old folks homes.

A Singaporean in Shanghai

I remember a HR article about how men and women look for joba. On average, a man will apply for the job, if he feels able to at least 30% of the job specifications. However, a woman will apply, only if she feels able to meet at least 70% of the job specs.

I am more like the average woman. When I look back on my career, I realise that there have been more than a few occasions when I "self-disqualified" myself from a new career role, because I had felt that I lacked some necessary skill or ability.

One of those skills/abilities has been my Chinese language proficiency. I speak Chinese well enough, for everyday purposes. However, I am in the legal profession. My work involves analysing laws and drafting legal contracts. This kind of work calls for higher language standards. You don't merely have to read the small print - you need to be able to write it too. I have that kind of proficiency in the English language, but I've not felt that my command of Chinese was sufficiently strong.

I've just returned from a business trip to Shanghai. This was my first time there. The business and financial district of Shanghai looks extremely modern and developed. The place reeks of consumerism and wealth. You can tell from the number of luxury cars whizzing by on the roads, and also the types of shops that line the streets. Gucci, Cartier, Apple, Louis Vuitton, the Ritz Carlton and the like.

To prepare for this trip, I had brushed up on my Chinese language. This trip was an important one from a work perspective. So I took the trouble to learn various technical terms in Chinese that are relevant to my type of work. For example, credit risk management (信用风险管理）, interest rate swaps （利率互换）, clearing house （清算所）, events of default （违约事件）, regulatory requirements (监管要求） and risk exposure limits (风险敞口险额）.

In the two weeks before my business trip, I had set the target of learning 5 to 10 technical phrases per day. By the time I stepped foot on the plane to Shanghai, I had mastered about 80 such terms and phrases. At my meetings in Shanghai, I was pleased to find that this newly-expanded Chinese vocabulary of mine comfortably got me through.

Now, looking back on my school days, I wonder why Chinese had seemed so difficult back then, whereas the learning seemed relatively quick and painless this time round. Then the answer struck me. But of course. Here I was learning for a specific purpose - I knew why I wanted to learn, and what I had to use the learning for. I needed to know how to say the things that I needed to say.

Whereas in school, Chinese had been difficult because it didn't seem to have any purpose, beyond exams and tests. 默写，in particular, had seemed quite pointless - you basically had to memorise long sentences and regurgitate them for the sake of scoring marks.

Homosexuality & Nature - A Tale of Two Rabbits

My daughter had long wanted to have a pet. Cat, dog, hamster, whatever - she wasn't fussy, as long as she got a pet. Back in March, during the school holidays, I finally relented. We went to several pet shops, looked at many different animals and after a lot of hemming and hawing, decided to get two rabbits.

I gave clear instructions to the shop assistant that we wanted two rabbits of the same gender. Both could be male, or both could be female. The main thing was that I didn't want the pair to be able to make new baby bunnies.

The pet shop assistant helped us to pick two rabbits. She assured me that they were male. This wasn't obvious to me, as both rabbits were still young and sexually immature and their private parts were small (and furthermore, all covered up in fur). But I trusted the shop assistant.

Back home, we put both rabbits in the same cage. Soft, cuddly and cute, both were also very happy to be carried around in our arms like a newborn baby. Everyone in the family loved the two new pets. We named them Blackie and Chocolate.

Then one day, Blackie bit my maid Neslie.

It was quite a bad bite. Small but deep. I saw the drops of blood, falling one by one, from Neslie's finger, onto the floor. I was shocked. Up to then, both rabbits had always been very docile and gentle.

I asked Neslie what had happened. She said that she had seen the rabbits having sex. Neslie knew that I didn't want any rabbit pregnancies, so she tried to catch Blackie and carry him off Chocolate. Evidently, Blackie got angry and proceeded to bite. Or so Neslie claimed.

"But that can't be right, Neslie," I said. "They couldn't have been having sex. Both are male. The woman at the pet shop said so."

But the next day, I saw it with my own eyes. Blackie had clambered on top of Chocolate again, and was excitedly wiggling his rear end in an unmistakeable manner. I got scared. Two pet rabbits is fine with me, add another six or seven babies and that's just too many for me.

I quickly got another cage. I separated Blackie and Chocolate. I was thinking that the pet shop assistant must have made a mistake, and that Chocolate was actually female. In fact, I felt rather annoyed with the shop assistant for causing us all this extra trouble.

** ** ** ** ** ** **
Months have passed. I now know that the pet shop assistant had not made a mistake.

Both Blackie and Chocolate have reached adulthood. Their reproductive organs have become quite  conspicuous. In particular, it's become clear that Chocolate definitely has testicles, just like Blackie.

We still keep the rabbits in separate cages. They have grown bigger, so they do need the extra space. But sometimes we put the two rabbits together to play. During many of those times, Blackie still goes after Chocolate. It is definitely a sexual thing, not just  playing or fighting. For we can see that Blackie gets an erection.

Chocolate never shows any sexual interest in Blackie. Chocolate just looks puzzled when Blackie tries to hump him. Sometimes Chocolate will run away and sometimes Chocolate will just get annoyed and manoeuvre around to get Blackie off his back. At other times, Chocolate just sits still and contemplates the universe and chews on a bit of hay while Blackie carries on enthusiastically.

** ** ** ** ** ** **
It is well-known that homosexuality exists widely in nature. Scientists have observed homosexuality in many different species. According to Wikipedia, these species include sheep, swans, penguins, vultures, dolphins, giraffes, bison, bed bugs, elephants, lizards, dragonflies, fruit flies, monkeys, chimpanzees etc.

So I guess that Blackie's sexual orientation should not be that surprising and is perhaps not that uncommon.

Nevertheless, I still feel that Blackie is pretty special. A gay rabbit! Fancy that. It makes my children laugh, just to talk about it.

I just wonder what a fundamentalist Christian would say about this whole matter.

Monsters and Dementia

Oh my poor, neglected blog. I had nearly forgotten that you exist.

Anyway, a quick one for this virtual scrapbook. The National Arts Council contacted me some time back ago and asked if I would write a poem for young children. This was for a project between the NAC and Singapore Press Holdings. I haven't ever written a poem for kids before, so I thought I would give it a shot. I came up an idea, let it brew in my brain for a couple of days and then wrote it all out.

The result was My Bedtime Monsters, which takes a young child's fear of the dark (and its imaginary monsters) and turns into a humorous, light-hearted poem instead. The poem is very enjoyable if read aloud, and can easily be used for a fun-filled speech-&-drama session for young kids. It was published in the Sunday Times two Sundays ago.

Shortly after that, someone by the name of Dr Elizabeth Pang contacted me. She works at the Ministry of Education and her area of speciality is literacy development for preschool children. Elizabeth had seen my poem in the Sunday Times and she asked if I would allow the MOE to republish it, as a book for very young children.

Yes, an entire book. It's going to be a book for kindergarten students, the kind of kiddie book that has big, colourful illustrations and just a few lines per page. I said yes.



* * * * * * * What else?

One year ago, two young people, Jeremy Boo and Lee Xian Jie, ran a series of activities to raise public awareness about dementia. Among other things, they made a documentary (Before We Forget) which premiered at the Southeast Asian Film Festival 2012 and was screened at the Singapore Art Museum.

They also organised public exhibitions which featured poems, photos and real-life stories, from family members of dementia patients. Xian Jie also featured one of my blog posts, where I had written about my (now deceased) grandmother, who had also suffered dementia.

This year, Xian Jie and Jeremy have been working on a new book, which will be launched in conjunction for World Alzehimer's Day in September. The book compiles a variety of writings from family members of dementia victims. It will include an old poem of mine, Grandmother's Garden, and the book itself will be entitled Grandmother's Garden and other Stories.

I must admit that I never watched the documentary Before We Forget, even though I was invited to the screening. I only saw a trailer. It looked very good. However, it also looked terribly sad. That is why I decided not to go.

Two Duds on a Friday Morning

Where was I, at that time?

Up on a hilly park called Nam-San, somewhere in Seoul. My Korean colleagues had assured me that this was the peak of cherry blossom seasons, and that here at Nam-San, I should be able to see some really pretty sights like this:

So, two colleagues and I had gotten up extra early, left our respective hotels and taken a cab to Nam-San that morning. We saw plenty of cherry blossom trees, but unfortunately no blossoms. Except for one single cherry blossom tree in full bloom (this tree must have been either clueless or rebellious by nature), all the trees were leafless and flowerless. The winter had been too cold, and the blossom season was delayed.

What a dud.

So we took a little walk around the park anyway, although now it wasn't that much fun. And then suddenly, my colleague got a news alert on her Blackberry, stating that North Korea had just launched its rocket. It was just a one-liner news alert. She got a little nervous and said that maybe we ought to head back now.

I was thinking to myself that this wasn't much of a game plan. If a rocket were to hit Seoul (I know that isn't supposed to be North Korea's game plan at this time, but then you have some crazy people up there), it probably wouldn't make much difference whether you were in a park, or back in the hotel or office. It would be a bloody mess anyway.

Later we learned that the North Korea launch that Friday morning was just like the Nam-San cherry blossoms. The missile did take off, but it didn't quite work. A short time after take-off, it proceeded to break up and crash harmlessly. So that was another dud, and a clear indication that North Korea's missile technology is still a long way off from posing any real long-range nuclear threat. At the least, in the words of one expert observer here - "It certainly degrades that threat considerably."

Internationally, North Korea's rocket-related behaviour had caused (and is still causing) a lot of international consternation and worry, receiving plenty of attention at the U.N level and also from the U.S. and China. But how do the South Koreans themselves feel about the matter? One might imagine that the South Koreans should be the most worried people of all. After all, North and South are enemies, and if the North actually had missiles that worked, the South would be their most obvious target.

If you talk to the South Koreans though, you'd see that they don't care that much. They have lived with their crazy neighbour up north for so many decades that by now, they have grown somewhat numb to the whole situation. Life has to go on, and it does, for the South Koreans, who have no intention of postponing their usual lives and activities to get all worried and upset, every time North Korea says or does something about missiles and rockets.

Over lunch that same day, a Korean lawyer remarked to me that the blase-ness with which most South Korean citizens view the North Korean threat is perhaps not that healthy. She said, "Perhaps we have grown too complacent,. We have become used to the threat, but now perhaps we might be forgetting that the threat is actually real."

But a short time later, as we were still talking about the failed missile launch, she laughed loudly over her kimchi and said, "I knew that was going to happen. I already told all my friends - that rocket is going to crash or stall or  explode right after take-off, or something. The North Koreans - they can't get anything right."

In other words, a dud.